Knowledge Logics and Epistemic Tension in Public Decision Making: An Analytical Perspective for Public Administration and Governance

In public and hybrid settings, substantial knowledge is often available, but its influence on decision making and implementation remains limited. Existing scholarship has shown that this problem involves more than a simple knowledge deficit. Greater analytical attention needs to be paid to how different standards for valid, useful, and authoritative knowledge operate simultaneously within the same decision situation. This essay develops a threefold claim. First, it distinguishes five knowledge logics: certainty, interaction, legitimacy, network, and influence. Second, it identifies four recurring dynamics among them: dominance, collision, decoupling, and productive combination. Third, it argues that their relative weight shifts across administrative phases.